When Adam Oates was introduced as the new Capitals head coach in 2012, the press conference was held in the basement of the Verizon Center. The arena’s interview room is a dingy space that brings to mind a Soviet office building. That was fitting for Oates’s tenure. On a hot Tuesday afternoon in May, Washington introduced the replacement administration. This time, they chose a more auspicious location. After being served a buffet of tilapia and oatmeal raisin cookies, media members sat down in nice padded chairs in the Acela Club to listen to Ted Leonsis, Dick Patrick, Barry Trotz, and Brian MacLellan talk about the future. I’ll have more on that later, but for now, here are my photos of the presser.

“Should I start by saying fire away or is that the wrong terminology?” McPhee joked as he walked up to the podium. “I felt it was coming, but in this job, you’re 24 hours away from being fired almost any time.”

“I’m the manager and I was supposed to get it done,” he added. “I’m not going to say anything negative about anyone here. No thanks. … I blame no one.”

Instead, McPhee wanted his press conference to be a farewell more than a postmortem. When he joined the organization, his son Graham had yet to be born. Last week, McPhee read Capitals scouting reports on him. Throughout his talk, McPhee praised his former players, praised his former coaches, and he praised the people that fired him. On Saturday morning, team president Dick Patrick placed a call to McPhee. An hour later, owner Ted Leonsis contacted him too.

“When I saw that it was from the office at 10 o’clock Saturday morning I thought ‘Well this isn’t gonna be good news,’” McPhee said. “Our last game was Sunday … [I didn’t want to] get whacked on Sunday night or Monday morning. I wanted a chance to just breathe a little and talk about it. I thought it worked really well.”

Today was a weird day. I’ve run into George McPhee many times, both as a tiny Caps fan and as an adult blogger. I really like him. And I loved Adam Oates as a player.

But, obviously, the Washington Capitals needed a change – the trade requests and the revolving door of coaches suggested serious dysfunction in the organization. Today, majority owner Ted Leonsis and team president Dick Patrickhit the reset button, firing GMGM and Oates.

While some readers are openly celebrating the firings (which I totally get), this is also a painful moment for the people involved– most notably Leonsis and Patrick, whose decisions led the team down this path.

Both men spoke to the media on Saturday and you could tell it was not a press conference they enjoyed.